Tada, I believe it was torpedoman who first reported on Don addressing the potential licensing agreement at the AGM. Regardless, as you said, Don clearly did say they missed the time target but were still in discussions.  One note on this and it is pure speculation, if those discussions involved either AZN or PFE the election of Trump and the potential for repatriation of offshore funds could very well restart talks of PFE taking over AZN.  That in turn could put RVX on the back burner with either of these two.  There are quite a few scenarios that could come from this set of circumstances, none of which where timing would be under Don's control.  

As I've stated before, I agree with tada that it is unlikely Eastern would want to become a BP. In addition to tada's points regarding the time to build a distribution network it would also entail considerable expense.  Between lost revenue on time to network build out and the expense of that build out it, IMO, would seriously eat into ROI.  To me Eastern has done a masterful job of obtaining its roughly 30% ownership in RVX while at the same time significantly protecting its downside risk.  Trying to become a BP would increase their risk profile in this investment, but I guess never say never.